Santee Lakes, A hidden Pearl

Well I hope you all will forgive me I have been a little lax in my blogging about my latest geo caching adventures.

Below you will find a treasure I had hitherto only heard about. Santee Lakes. These man made lakes set in the middle of Santee are a joy and a pleasure to have gone hunting (geocaching) at.

Here are some actual photos taken from a small paddle boat that some friends rented for the small birthday party I was attending.


a

It's peacful quiet views are a wonderfull place to enjoy a quiet afternoon or let the kids go run to their hearts content.

Complete with play equipment and fishing area it's a joy for the family to vist. All while still looking for the 2 or 3 cache's around the area. This one was actually quite easy to find as the clues where a little to spot on.

It was however a way to put another notch in the geocaching belt.

My next blog entry should prove to be quite the read as I endeavored to solve a serious puzzle .

Until then Enjoy.

Our 1st DNF (did not find) of 2008

Well took the family out again to a small local park like are here in the San Diego area. It's a quaint little spot dead in the middle of El Cajon Ca.

Good for the locals in the office buildings nearby to have a pic-nic lunch and enjoy the beautiful San Diego weather.

Well I did see on the clues that there was another person also could not find the cache so I decided to take a chance any.

Well no such luck but we did have an interesting experience.. We parked the car in the lot adjacent to the park. Unloaded all 4 kids and the wife, Checked the clues and went hunting.

Hmm must beware of the muggle sitting on the park bench knitting.. yes Knitting.. a nice little old lady just enjoying the warm winter's day.

But guess what.. Ground zero was on or around the spot where she was sitting..

There went that cache for the day. We decided to to take trip to more kid friendly park for an hour or two to see if she would take off. Didn't want to disturb her or anything.

Well back from the park. and yes she was gone but so it appeared was the cache. We double checked our clues and yep our 1st dnf for the year.

Oh well. It was fun to be on an outing with the family.

Until next time Good hunting

PLEASE VISIT MY FAVORITE NEW GAME SITE. HERE YOU CAN PLAY GAMES WITH VIRTUAL MONEY AND WIN REAL MONEY. NO CREDIT CARD OR ANY TYPE OF REAL MONEY NEEDED TO GET STARTED
MOOLA.COM

My Geo Caching day in Juian, California

Well I'm a little delayed in posting this latest entry so please all forgive me.



This is a post about My family trip to Julian, A small mountain community just about an hour outside of San Diego. It's a beautiful drive through through the local mountains as you can see below.










Along the journey through this great area you can also seen signs of the fires that ravaged the area in 2000.





I'm sorry the picture quality isn't the best here but you can see a monument to the travesty that was generated by those fires.








I Failed to get other pictures of all the new growth in the area due to the fact that the kids were getting ansy to get out of the car and run for a bit.


Having 4 kids in a car for more than an hour is asking for trouble.. lol.





We'll we made it into julian with out any major issues . The picture to the left is of the kids posing for me just past the the first part of the Multiple cache we are in search of.













A little history about where I travelled before reaching this point.

We reached town ok and started to unpack.. Kid after Kid to climb out of the car.. Grab the Stroller out of the back of the van and move on. Ok so where to go.. grab the diaper bag and start to move.


Oh wait did we check the gps.. yep It says go 500 ft that way, muggle speak for head north by norwest to gps co-ordinate .. n123.1455.266 by w 123.456.565 . Well you get the picture.


So up I went walking up the hill. And as I walked up the hill I started to realize that I was walking into a private neighborhood. A classic 1st timers mistake I think..


So I stopped to look at the direction sheet I had printed. Skipping over all the little details I shlould have read.


So the Gps reads go 500 ft that way ... well that way as the case was pointed right to through the middle of a small trailer park.. again I am stumped. So down the hill I went. To see what I could find.


And I watch the meter so wrong direction so I alter direction to try again and again walking around and around in circles.. Are you dizzy yet.

Well I finally stopped back at the car to sit and do a thorough read of the instructions.. What A guy I am.. Can't read instructions to save my life.

So while reading I have a epifany.. The clues are on small placques such as the one shown below.




So once we found it. I figured it's all down hill from there.. The clues on placques throughout town. Shouldn't be that hard.





But as obvious as that I still didn't pay close enough attention and continued to walk around town and out to one of the roads leading out of town spending at least an hour of toatally useless walking around town. Useless only in the fact that the scenery was beautiful but I was trying to find a cache..

So finally with another treck back to the car to rest and eat. and try to figure out where I need to be.

So me and my geo caching nephew decifered the clues and off we went.

Up to the cemetary where a couple of famous people where said to be buried and a few of the clues were supposed to be.




















Well we finally found all the clues, notwithstanding the hour or so I spent walking up and down roads that were no where near the places I should have been or even the half a dozen private residences I treked up to thinking maybe they were special or something.

I was honestly about to give up on the last one when my nephew said let me take one last look.

And Lo what did he find but the final cach.

What a great experience we have had.. A time to learn and grow together as we hiked with children and ourselfes through such a wonderfull little town filled with history and uniqueness.

I am so glad to have been shown the way of the Geo Cacher. My thanks to My mentor who shall remain nameless as I have not gotten his permission yet to print here in my blog.

Until next time. Happy Hunting